Windstorm Day 6: Thousands still in the dark

PASADENA - Power agencies were unprepared for the magnitude of last week's Santa Ana winds, which ripped through the region downing trees and knocking out power to thousands from East Los Angeles to San Bernardino.

"It was certainly hard to imagine that this wind storm would get this bad," said Erica Rolufs Pasadena Water and Power spokeswoman. "We were prepared for a wind storm and we imagined there would be outages, but it's hard to imagine anything of this magnitude."

The storm initially knocked out power to more than 6,000 PWP customers. As of Tuesday 500 customers remain in the dark.

"It's not a systemic issue. All the primary circuits are restored, and that's what we completed yesterday evening," Rolufs said. "We are now at a phase where we are looking at secondary circuits and lines, and issues like transformers that may have been damaged or dislodged by the storm."

As of 9 a.m. Tuesday, about 10,060 Southern California Edison customers were still without power following last Wednesday and Thursday's fierce windstorm that downed more than a hundred power poles, a Southern California Edison spokesman said.

Most of the SCE customers without power are located in the San Gabriel Valley. They include customers in Altadena, Arcadia, La Canada Flintridge, Monrovia, South Pasadena, San Gabriel and Temple City.

"We hope to have everyone restored within 24 hours but some areas do require more extensive repairs so they may take longer," spokesman Charlie Coleman said Tuesday morning. "We're trying to do it as quickly and safely as possible."

With the uprooting thousands of tress, obtaining access to equipment has been an issue throughout the region, Coleman said.